Writing With Abandon

Over winter break, I was scrambling to figure out where to cut my hair and how much to cut off. My hairdresser that I’ve used for the last few years was on maternity leave, and my hair was getting way too long. No spring in its step. Flattening easily. Taking forever to dry.

I’ve had all kinds of haircuts over the years. My hair was pin straight as a little kid, photos showing me with a short bob and thick, straight-across bangs. In elementary school, I tried to cut bangs like Lindsay Lohan does in The Parent Trap, but obviously they didn’t come out like hers, so I wore a headband most of that year. My hair got long and was mostly straight and wavyish throughout middle school.

Then, sometime between sophomore and junior year, it got curly, likely due to hormonal changes. My parents and my sister have curly hair too, so it was only a matter of time (there is a great photo of them in the late 80s or 1990, when Tillie was still a toddler and I wasn’t part of the picture yet, and they all not only have the same hair type, but the same hair style: big, loose curls — I love that photo).

Before college, I got bangs, which didn’t last too long, as then I started playing around with cutting my friends’ hair and having them cut mine. Halfway through freshman year, visions of Jean Seberg in my mind, I walked into a barber shop in Brooklyn and walked out with a very short pixie cut. Then I grew it out, with a series of strange cuts and bobs during the awkward phase. When I studied abroad in Barcelona, it was back to shoulder length curly, and back to short bangs. I got a fun cut that was ever so slightly shorter in the back. Senior year I cut it into a bob again, and a year later, I got another pixie before moving back to Madrid. I kept the pixie up for a while but then let it grow out once more, passing through the inevitable awkward phases again.

It’s mostly been somewhere between a bob and past shoulder length since then. I cut bangs a few years ago thinking it’d be similar to when I had them in college (spoiler alert: it wasn’t, whether because my hair is way curlier now than it ever was, or because I live in freaking Miami). I have told multiple friends to not let me cut bangs ever again, and they have held fast to that commitment (thanks especially to Ariel and Gianna, who say it to me anytime I text them that I’m craving a change).

So back to January. (I kind of forgot where this slice had begun!)

(And actually, I had intended this slice to be about my hair routine, as this morning was a wash day. We’ll see what we can fit in. The kettle just turned off and I’d like to settle in with my morning tea and the NYT games before my work day begins.)

I found a couple of hairdressers on Instagram and messaged one of them, who essentially told me all my products were wrong and the way I was styling my hair was wrong too.

Ahem.

This all coming from a stylist who, by the way, doesn’t have curly hair, not even barely a wave.

Any of us who have curls, frizz, ringlets, coils, significant waves — we’re all on a journey to figuring out what works best for us. And sorry, but someone who doesn’t have the personal experience of trying to tame those curls in 90% humidity needs to just zip it.

She essentially told me that if I wanted a haircut from her, I’d need to embrace body and frizz cause that was what my hair type was (sending photos of the shag cut that just isn’t my vibe), or succumb to significant styling every time I washed my hair.

But see, I’m a veeeeery low maintenance girl. Wash day isn’t even that crazy for me and it’s still a lot of effort (mostly because you can’t brush curls in between wash days, so all the 50-100 hairs that fall out of your scalp daily? The ones that don’t fall to the floor stay trapped on your head until you wash, which means you’re pulling out clumps and clumps of hair as you wash and rinse. For someone who does not like hairballs, it’s not fun).

And anyway, 90% of wash days, I do like how my hair dries! My routine does work!

So I said BYE to that hairdresser and found another who did have my hair type and did have experience cutting curly hair, and she revived my hair by cutting off about 3-4 inches and I have been enjoying this cut pretty significantly. She even gave me the confidence to trim wayward curls myself, because sometimes that’s just what happens with these babies!

Which brings me back to this morning, and my hair routine.:

• Wash twice, deep condition, rinse.
• Using a wide-toothed comb, comb out my hair, parting it down the middle (I have a heavy part and there’s no way to fight that) and combing the hair at the front forward (this was the new hairdresser’s tip).
• Flip once, flip twice. I do not know why I do this, but it works.
• Grab a few squirts of leave-in conditioner — I used the Ouai for many years, but am now currently using Crown Affair’s which smells so good — and with prayer hands, apply to hair flipped on both sides, then scrunch scrunch scrunch.
• Take a few pumps of Crown Affair’s mousse (I used to use a cream/gel that my mom swears by and that I used for yeeeears, but I’m trying the mousse lately for lighter hold!) and apply in the same way as the leave-in.
• Use a microfiber towel to scrunch up the remaining product and moisture.
• Done!

And then it’s always a surprise how it dries. Let’s see how it goes today!

Edit – 10:42am – for the dried look! It’s a good hair day!